A day that could only get better

I think if I could just stay awake until 10 p.m. and let Angus out for one last backyard visit at that time, he might be able to make it until 5 or even (oh, lovely thought!) 5:30 a.m. As it is, though, I have not slept through the night since he arrived on Dec. 29 and when I climb in bed at 9:15 with my book and all good intentions, I am out for the count within about twenty minutes. Or ten.

So Monday at 4 a.m. came the familiar chuckles and chirps that meant if you do not let me out of this crate now I will begin to scream!

(All you who think you want a puppy, take note.)

Out we went, into that glossy ice rink of a yard under the black starry sky, and Angus did what he had to do, and when we went back in the house instead of hopping up the stairs to his crate, as he always does, he zipped into the dining room and curled up in the radiator dog bed next to Rosie.

They looked so sweet and cozy I almost left him there. But then I started thinking of all the trouble he could get into, unsupervised, for an hour--the things he could chew, or pee on, or otherwise destroy; the things he could eat (bottle caps, or paper clips, or rubber bands) that would screw up his innards worse than they already are, and require expensive surgery--and I made him come upstairs.

The compromise was that instead of putting him back into his crate, I put him in our bed, and that seemed like a pretty good compromise to me.

After breakfast Doug and I loaded him into the little travel crate in the back of my car and we drove the nine or ten blocks to the vet, and when we opened up the hatchback holy mother of god, the dog had puked all over. All over himself, and the crate, and the crate blankets, and his leash, and in trying to get him out of the car we ended up with puke on our pants and shoes and gloves and the sleeve of my jacket, and later, when Doug was at work, he noticed a tiny bit of puke on his shoe.

This was not like the cartoon splat puke of the trip to Minneapolis to get photographed by Leslie Plesser; this was a silent puke, and it was his entire breakfast, still recognizable as kibble and so not completely disgusting.

But still. Our little boy does not like the car.

So before he could see the vet we had to borrow a damp rag from the vet techs and wipe him down, and ourselves, too, and when we were all presentable we went into the exam room.

The upshot of the visit was this: his weight is good (he is now a bit over 17 pounds--he has gained about four pounds in three and a half weeks--not a scary amount), and his heart sounds good, and everything is excellent except for his bowels, which, Dr. J. said, are "turgid."

I have not heard the word turgid used in this context before, but since I have been out in the back yard at 4 a.m. and other times, I knew exactly what he meant.

The vet tech was besotted with him--(Angus, that is, though we all love Dr. J, of course)--she took him in the back room and administered the booster shot and Angus, she told me later, just laid his head on her shoulder and cuddled. That's my boy!

So we are now in the experimentation stage.  We will test him to see if he has worms (his last test was negative, but they want another test), and we will give him kibble but nothing else to eat for a while--no pumpkin, no fish skins, no Charlee Bears, no Trader Joe's Grain-Free Gingerbread Snacks, no bottle caps, no paper clips, no rubber bands.

We can do this, even though it breaks my heart not to slip him a teeny tiny puppy-sized Milk Bone from time to time.  But we need to see how he does on the kibble, and if his innards remain turgid, then we will change his food.

Angus doesn't care. He'll eat anything, and kibble is just as delicious to him as Trader Joe's Grain-Free Gingerbread Snacks.  I'm the one who feels bad about this.

And now it is 7:30 p.m. and the second half of my experiment is about to kick in: Can I stay awake until 10 p.m.?

Check back tomorrow.